The Last Mile Chase
Posted on: Monday, 25 August 2008, 15:00 CDT
By Shamni Pande
Your local cable operator yes, that same guy who, irritatingly, climbs atop your terrace to fix someone else's cable, but who also, endearingly, is at your doorstep within 15 minutes of your TV screen going blank has a fight on his hands. On the one hand, his business is being squeezed by deep pocketed companies offering direct-to- home broadcast services; on the other, he is being pressured by increasingly powerful multi-service operators (MSOs) to sell out, or else... Then, there's the potential threat from the still-to-be- launched Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).
It isn't difficult to fathom why. Cable operators control a massive chunk 80 million out of 130 million television homes of the country's television content distribution market. And it is these subscribers that these new (and old) players want.
National footprints
Five players are slowly emerging in this space with geographic spreads that can be labelled, in a manner of speaking, national . These include the Raheja-controlled Hathway Cable & Datacom, the Essel Group's Wire & Wireless India (known as WWIL), the Hinduja Group's IndusInd Media, DEN Digital Entertainment Network (set up by GBN founder Sameer Manchanda and Network18 chief Raghav Bahl) and Digicable Network India (set up by Jagjit Singh Kohli). These five MSOs have managed to gobble up some small last-mile players, either through mergers and acquisitions or by converting some into franchisees.
They control, between them, access to a little over 20 million homes, or a quarter of the cable pie. This consolidation is attracting the attention of private equity players. The cable industry generates annual revenues of more than Rs 10,000 crore. If you compare the revenues of other parts of the industry such as advertising revenue for broadcasters and revenues of films, then this is larger than both.
The Last Mile Chase - Entertainment - redOrbit
Posted on: Monday, 25 August 2008, 15:00 CDT
By Shamni Pande
Your local cable operator yes, that same guy who, irritatingly, climbs atop your terrace to fix someone else's cable, but who also, endearingly, is at your doorstep within 15 minutes of your TV screen going blank has a fight on his hands. On the one hand, his business is being squeezed by deep pocketed companies offering direct-to- home broadcast services; on the other, he is being pressured by increasingly powerful multi-service operators (MSOs) to sell out, or else... Then, there's the potential threat from the still-to-be- launched Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).
It isn't difficult to fathom why. Cable operators control a massive chunk 80 million out of 130 million television homes of the country's television content distribution market. And it is these subscribers that these new (and old) players want.
National footprints
Five players are slowly emerging in this space with geographic spreads that can be labelled, in a manner of speaking, national . These include the Raheja-controlled Hathway Cable & Datacom, the Essel Group's Wire & Wireless India (known as WWIL), the Hinduja Group's IndusInd Media, DEN Digital Entertainment Network (set up by GBN founder Sameer Manchanda and Network18 chief Raghav Bahl) and Digicable Network India (set up by Jagjit Singh Kohli). These five MSOs have managed to gobble up some small last-mile players, either through mergers and acquisitions or by converting some into franchisees.
They control, between them, access to a little over 20 million homes, or a quarter of the cable pie. This consolidation is attracting the attention of private equity players. The cable industry generates annual revenues of more than Rs 10,000 crore. If you compare the revenues of other parts of the industry such as advertising revenue for broadcasters and revenues of films, then this is larger than both.
The Last Mile Chase - Entertainment - redOrbit
